Out of hibernation

Eish - I' know I'm the worst blogger ever!  Always lots of excuses.  This time I guess I can blame it on the winter.  It's been so cold and I just felt like doing as little as possible for as long as possible.  Anybody who know me know that that is sooo not what I'm like but this winter was just too much for me.  Have to admit that it was not only the cold but a lot of other "stuff" that dragged me down too. 

But now I feel sufficiently hibernated and slowly but surely I'm getting ready to shed the woolly (or shall I say flabby?) winter layers.  Unfortunately I not only talking about jerseys and jackets.  I've picked up soo much weight and I fell real yukky about it.  Will have to take drastic measures here.

On the home, or more specifically the garden, front - we've made steady progress during the winter.  The pool is completed and we liked it so much that we decided to ask the same guy to build a fishpond / water feature for us as well.  They've completed that today and it looks great!  Now I really can't wait for summer to start planting grass and get the rest of the garden done.

One thing that I did while in hibernation (that is apart from dragging myself to work and back every day!) was reading.  I finished a couple of books this winter including the Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larson.  I loved all 3 books:

After that I read "A Dark Dividing" by Sarah Rayne.  It was okay but nothing spectacular.  I think I might've enjoyed it more if I read it before the Stieg Larson books.

Now I'm busy reading "The Hobbit" after which I plan to tackle "The Lord of the Rings"

I ordered "Eat, Pray, Love" so I might read that first before I start The Lord of the Rings.

On the creative side things have been just as slow :( My mojo went into hibernation too!) Last week I decided to get my A in G and booked for art classes over the weekend. It was pure bliss to have a paintbrush in my hand again after 7 months of nothing! I've started another huge canvas. It's going to be another surprise painting for Leon, so shhh - don't say a word! :)

I'm really exited about the Scrapbook Convention that I signed up for.  It's going to be held in Jo'burg on 11 and 12 September.  It will be my very first 2 day convention so I'm a little scared as well.  The class info that we received look absolutely fabulous! 

 

I'm off to bed now.  Next time I'll be back with some unposted layouts and photos.

Sneeking back in …

I’m just going to slip this post in here as if nothing happened – maybe nobody will notice that I’ve been absent (once again!) for more than a month!!!

This is what my backyard looked like a week or so ago:

And this is what it looks like now:

Not much better but we’re getting there! Hopefully we’ll be able to enjoy all this by Springtime which is around September .

Last week was a horrible week! My handbag was stolen with (what felt like) my entire life inside it!!!!! Apart from the cash (which was quite substantial for me!), I lost: my wallet, cellphone (with all my contacts – I don’t have it backed up!), ID book, drivers license, all my bank cards + loyalty cards, glasses (this was the most expensive to replace), the book I was busy reading (The monk who sold his Ferrari), makeup + countless business cards with contacts that I will have a really hard time to get hold of again!

The very next day, just when I thought I had my share of bad luck, a guy came to my house to tell me that a car has hit Marco while he was driving his bicycle home from school. I almost had heart failure! By the grace of God the car hit his rear wheel and he only sustained minor injuries from falling from the bike. My first emotion was relief which turned into anger at the driver of the car but soon I realized that it won’t do anybody any good to be angry. Now I’m just soooooo grateful that my boy is ok.

This is what his bike looked like:

Winter is really creeping in now and however hard I worked to get at least one part of my garden growing , everything just seem to stagnate at this stage. Now I’m only trying to get everything covered up to protect it against the cold. I’m so looking forward to Spring this year – more so than ever before!

Our little fairy baby Leeloo was Christened in April.  She had a long fairy dress and we added wings but only for a quick photo shoot.  She looked soooooo cute!!!

I made this little card for her with a special message inside:

I haven’t been able to scrap a lot lately but I managed to finish a couple of  pages.  Here are 2 of them.  I'll take photos of the others and will post them next time.

Bye for now! :)

Seeking inspiration ...

We spent the Easter weekend at home mostly - very quietly mostly too, cause the kids were with their other parents.  We dined out all the time which was nice but I can feel the indulgement on my clothes already! 

Our little village had a couple of power failures over the weekend and since yesterday we're without water!  Rather frustrating cause we all know that the real reason is pathetic municipal management!

On Saturday Leon and I went to watch Alice in Wonderland in 3D.  What a brilliant movie!  Loved the fantasy, brilliant acting (especially by Johnny Depp - yum!) and special the effects!  The 3D technology is totally mind boggling!

We bought a couple of excellent cook books recently.   This one is my favourite:

Today I have all to myself to scrap my heart out and guess what - now my mojo is on vacation!!!  Will  have to browse around on my favorite sites until I find something to kick start me! :)

An hour later ....

Here are a couple of goodies I found that inspire me.  I'm not sure why it ended up to be mostly fashion items cause I'm not really into that.  Apart from the fact that I woul totally love to own and wear all of these items, I feel so inspired by them!

I love the romantic, vintage feeling of Michal Negrin's designs!  Look at this pretty little dress / top:

I found these cute shoes here:

I adore this bag.  I found it at this amazing site - Anthroplogie.  I'm sooooo in love with their style!  Check out their cool site for much more eye candy! :)

Love this top to bits!  Found it from ModCloth:

I'm off to my scraproom now to clean up my desk and just get going with what I have on there.  Hopefully my mojo will join me sometime soon ...

So far this week ....

I'm still enjoying my leave although I don't have a lot time to relax.  My maid had a hysterectomy on Monday which means  that I'll have to do the housework myself!!!  The garden is getting along - slowly but surely.  Not quite ready to share photos at this stage. 

I haven't done any scrapping so far this week but I have a page that I finished last week to share.

Marco had a rugby week in Potchefstroom this week - at my old primary school!  Yesterday we went to watch him play.  I walked through the school.  What a trip down memory lane that was!!!!!!

Marco's team went through to the finals but lost the game (which they played in pouring rain!) in the end.  They did get a trophy for second place though.

After rugby we went to see The Book of Eli.  If was Michaels choice and I didn't really want to see it, but I don't regret that we did.  Not the best movie ever made, but the story was good.  I little bit too gruesome for my liking.

During my gardening -"research", I found a picture of this beautiful rose called "My Granny". 

I fell in love with it and went on a mission to find it.  I was sure that it would  be difficult to get hold of as it always is when I want something specific like that.  Big was my surprise when I found it at the first nursery that I asked for it!  I am now the proud owner of two of these lovely rose bushes. Can't wait to get them into pots!  I'm going to that right now!

I'm on leave!!!!

I am officially on leave!  I decided to take 2 weeks leave from work to spend the school holidays with my kids.  This first term has been so totally hectic at work - especially the last month.  It was filled with lots of pressure - both physically and emotionally.  Had some tough decisions to make and even though it wasn't always the most popular decision - I now know that I did the right thing!

I'm still trying to relax and get used to the idea that I don't have to go to work on Monday.  I plan to spend a lot of time on my new garden.  From the little that I've done in the garden so far, I've come to realise that it takes so much effort (not to mention moolas!) to make just a little difference.  Lots of hard work still lying ahead but I'm sure I will be rewarded in the end.

I have a couple of lo's to share.

This one I made for my little baby girl Leeloo:

This is a very special one I made for Michael.  He was christened when he was about 3 months old.  He recently decided that he wanted to be babtised again.  This made my heart jump with joy!

A while ago one of my colleages from work asked me to do a photoshoot of her family. She knows that I'm a passionate amature photographer who loves to take photos of especially kids. We made a date for this past Monday - which was a public holiday. I really enjoyed doing this sooooo much! I wish I could do this every day of my life. Just not so sure if I'm good enough or that the market is big enough to make a living from photography alone. Here are some of the shots that I like best:

I just love to take candid photos in a natural relaxed setting.  I think it's so much nicer than studio photos.  In our area at least there aren't any photographers that I know of who does this kind of thing and I would love to explore the possibility of doing this for a living.  I would really appreciate your feedback - both about the photos and the idea of doing this professionally.

Hope that all of you will have a funfilled relaxed weekend!

Bye for now! :)